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Should Whitehorse jail inmates be charged for phone calls?

A controversial new phone policy has been implemented for prisoners in the Yukon that requires inmates to pay at least $1.35 to make telephone calls.

The Whitehorse Correctional Centre installed a system that requires inmates to pay at least $1.35 to make telephone calls from their daily earnings that range from $1.50 to $6.50. (SUSANA VERA / REUTERS)

However, the jail sometimes didn’t know who inmates were calling or whether they were threatening witnesses.

That all changed at the beginning of June in a controversial step that has upset legal aid lawyers in the Yukon.

The jail installed a system that requires inmates to pay at least $1.35 to make telephone calls from their daily earnings that range from $1.50 to $6.50.

All public calls will now be recorded, except for legal and privileged calls.

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Legal aid lawyers and access-to-justice advocates say this policy will prevent inmates from making calls to access legal aid lawyers because of the cost.

Chantal Genier, acting manager of the justice department for the Council of Yukon First Nations in Whitehorse, told the Star in a telephone interview that she has been taking complaints from inmates on the issue.

“Frankly, we’re a little frustrated and worried,” she said.

“If inmates are going to be charged $1.35 a call, we have concerns about those on remand who are waiting for matters to go to trial, or those people who are trying to secure counsel.”

She added that not all inmates are able to get work, and the pay averages only $2.50 a day.

Those supports are necessary to help the inmates with overall healing, she said.

Genier added that she found out “at the last minute” that legal aid is not going to be on an exemption list, along with some other government services.

Yukon’s legal aid director, Nils Clarke, was not available to speak to the Star on Tuesday, but last week he told the Yukon News that the user telephone system is “utterly perverse.”

“At its worst, they wouldn’t even be able to apply for legal aid because they wouldn’t be able to call us,” Clarke said.

However, Dan Cable, spokesman for the Yukon Department of Justice, defends the user-fee phone system.

He said there are only about 60 to 65 inmates on remand at any given time so the call volume is low.

In addition, Cable said this in an email:

“The indigent phone policy allows for the Whitehorse Correctional Centre to provide a pre-paid phone card charged by the centre for three free calls which can be added to by the Centre should the inmate need it. Inmate phone cards and indeed inmate bank accounts can have money placed into them by family or friends and this has long been a policy of the centre.”

Cable also said that detained inmates are entitled to one free call upon admittance to the correctional centre.

Inmates are also able to make collect calls.

Cable said the issue over charging inmates also relates to fairness.

“Inmates are charged for phone use because inmates should not receive a benefit that the general public does not receive,” Cable told the Star in an email. “If an average citizen needs to make a call to a friend or a lawyer, they have to pay for that call.”

Before implementing the secure system, other jurisdictions were consulted on their inmate telephone policies, Cable said.

Prices for making local calls range from $1 to $2.50 and three provinces — Ontario, Manitoba and New Brunswick — charge inmates for legal calls, Cable added.

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